Lips of an Angel
by abootaboo
Summary: A songfic based on Lips of an Angel by Hinder. Hermione and Ron have broken up after the war, and are now each dating different people.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Just plain, boring boring wishful thinking—that I owned Harry Potter, and that there were more Harry Potter books. Okay, actually I don't wish ****that ****I own****ed**** Harry Potter. I just wish wish wish that there were more books. So now, I'm just rambling. Whatever, just ignore me and carry on.**

**This song is called "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder I think I'm gonna make one chapter per verse, but I dunno yet. Depends on how people react to it, I guess. Enjoy!**

_Honey why you calling me so late?  
__It's kinda hard to talk right now.  
__Honey why are you crying? Is everything okay?  
__I gotta whisper 'cause I can't be too loud_

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**Prologue**

Ron sat slouched in the seat, his mind paying attention to only the music blasting by his ears. He blocked everything else out—the couples, the dancing, and the jubilance in the air. His elbow rested on the table and his forehead on his palm. The table looked repulsive, and it was unknown to him whether it was because of the hearts with names scratched into its surface, or if it was because of the gum plastered all over the underside of the round table.

_Maybe I should just go home. Really, what__'__s the point of being here? Not like anyone__'__s gonna talk to me, anyway._

Really, he just shocked himself sometimes. When his mother had shouted at him to "go on, go meet some people," his initial reaction was to adamantly refuse. He'd cut himself off from everyone else, ever since a week or so after the final battle, talking only when he really _needed_ to. "Pass the sugar/butter/knife/tissue" was all he remembered saying throughout the last month; who would he be to suddenly start socializing again? But he'd gone anyway. He'd been hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, he would see her.

_That__'__s it. I__'__m going home. Where__'__s my jack__—_

"WON-WON!" A figure came running at him from behind as he stood up to retrieve his jacket, knocking him over onto the ground. She toppled over, right on top of him, and was flashing a dazzling smile at him when he finally regained his composure and had stood back up.

"Oh. Hey."

"Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you for _so_ long!" Lavender gushed. Ron apprehensively eyed her skirt, which left, if anything, incredibly little to the imagination. She clasped her hands tightly on his shoulders , looking into his eyes. She began to raise a hand up to his slightly damp hair, a small smile forming on her lips.

"Did you take a shower right before you came?" said Lavender, her voice slightly husky as she moved an inch closer to him.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he took a step back in response. "No. It's raining. Didn't you notice?" He reached to the ground for his jacket and gave her a small wave as he began to head towards the door, but was stopped as one of her fingers hooked around his belt.

"_Stop playing hard to get._" She smiled. "I'll owl you."

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He inhaled her scent as she pushed herself up to him, even closer. They were at his flat near Hogsmeade, on their second "date."

"Won-won," she began, pouting.

"What's wrong?" He raised his eyebrows, not taking his eyes off the flickering flames in front of them. They seemed to dance mockingly in front of his eyes. They knew; they knew he didn't want to be there.

"Won-won, my lips hurt, will you fix them for me?" she simpered.

_Merlin. What is wrong with her?_

He nearly burst out laughing right there and then—really, was she dropped on her head too many times as a child or something? She couldn't possibly have said anything cheesier.

_Well, what do you do, Ron? Do you kiss her?_

_You can__'__t possibly kiss her. First of all, you don__'__t want to. Second of all, what about Herm--_

He shrugged off his nagging concerns. What good would it do to dwell on the past? He and Hermione were long over.

_Well, not really. Only a month or so._

But still, they'd promised; they'd decided that it would be better for both of them this way.

He leaned in a bit closer to Lavender, nearly choking on the stench of her perfume. She'd closed her eyes and was leaning in as well. Closer, and closer. As long as he didn't breathe, it would be only too easy to pretend that those blonde locks were brown, and that she was a foot or so shorter. Their lips touched, and Ron recoiled almost immediately.

_Lavender doesn__'__t kiss like her, it won__'__t work. I__'__ll just pull away and leave, yeah--_

RING RING RING

"The fellyfone," Lavender broke away from the kiss and looked up into the corner of the room. There, sat a little black box with a banana shaped receiver sitting on top of it.

"Here, I'll get it." He stood up and began to stride to the phone. "And Lavender, it's called a telephone."

She looked slightly dazed for a moment, and then her expression suddenly lit up, as though she'd made a world-class discovery. "Oh, so _that_'s why my Muggle Studies teacher marked it wrong. I'd always thought she just had a grudge against me or something. I mean, when you look like me—" she flipped back her blonde hair with a smug grin on her face "—all the ladies get just so jealous."

Ron picked up the phone, and shouted into the receiver. Wasn't that how he was supposed to do it? He'd never really used this thing before. Dad had just given it to him as a going away present when Ron had announced that he was going to move out.

"HELLO?"

"Oh, hey, it's me."

He froze. It was her. Bu..but..Lavender was here right now, this wasn't exactly the best timing ever.

"Hey, 'Mione," he whispered, careful not to let Lavender catch the name he had said.

"Ron, I…I…. I don't know, I just needed to talk to someone."

"Sure, the timing isn't quite perfect, but let's just talk anyway. Hey, 'Mione, you…crying?" He heard a cross between a sniffle and a giggle on the other end.

_Hell, I didn__'__t even know that was possible. A sniffle-giggle?_

"Won-won, who are you talking to?" Lavender had sidled up to him and was trying to move her ear over to the receiver. "Won-won?"

"It's Harry. We're um…talking about…uhhh…guy stuff. Wait for me in the kitchen, Lavender."

Lavender looked disgusted. "Guy stuff? Well, of course I'm not gonna listen." She began to head off towards the kitchen. "…guy stuff, seriously. Eww."

"Good job getting rid of her, Ron." The other person on the other side of the receiver said in a pinched voice. "And you're with Lavender?"

"Um…yeah."

"Then, I don't think that I should be talking to you right now, I guess I'll call Ginny or Harry, it's all right, Ron. Bye."

"No, wait!" he said. "'Mione, it's okay, I'm here. Just tell me what's wrong."

"Really, it's okay. I don't want you to miss out on quality time with her or anything, so I'll just…"

"WAIT!"

"Won-won, what's wrong?" Lavender chimed in from the kitchen, poking her head out of the door.

"It's nothing, uh, it's just that Harry wants to propose to uh...Ginny and I didn't want him to do it just yet, so yeah."

"Okay," she shot him a sickly sweet smile from the door and then moved back into the kitchen.

"So, 'Mione, what's wrong?"

"It's Viktor." She choked out, and Ron could tell she was on the verge of a cascade of tears.

"What did that arse do to you this time, eh?" he spat. "And why are you together with him again anyway, you—"

"I could say the same thing for you, Ron. Why are you with Lavender again?"

She did have a point.

_But still, she should know that I can't just forget her like that; she doesn't have any right to go around with Vicky again._

_Yes she does. It was a clean break, Ron. You told each other that you weren't going to be miserable your whole life or something. Just get over it._

"Forget about that. What did he _do_ to you?"

"He…he proposed to me. He asked me to marry him."

"HE ASKED YOU TO _MARRY_ HIM?" he screeched at the top of his lungs, forgetting entirely about Lavender in the kitchen.

"What, so Harry's gay? I should've known, I mean, with hair like that, he must be utterly irresistible to guys as well. With who, Ron? With who? Oh, Merlin, is it with _Neville_?"

"No, it's with…Dean, Lavender. Just…stay in the kitchen."

As Lavender slunk back into the kitchen, he could still hear her squealing jovially about the gossip she was going to be able to spread tomorrow.

"Poor, poor, Harry," Hermione said. "I'll need to warn him about this later. He's going to die of shock if Dean suddenly comes up to him and asks if he told everyone they were getting married; no, imagine if _Ginny_ finds out before him."

He could picture Hermione shaking her head as she said this. "Enough about that, 'Mione. That oaf asked you to marry him? Well, how was it? Did he demand that you marry him? Did he demand that you be his servant for the rest of his life? _Did he_?" said Ron scathingly.

"No, it was actually rather sweet, really. He booked reservations for us at a restaurant and had a string quartet playing and everything," said Hermione unsteadily, as though she still couldn't believe it.

"And you said yes?" His voice was wobbling. This was _his_ 'Mione. Krum couldn't just take her away from him like that, she was _his_, regardless of the status in their relationship. Just because they weren't going out didn't mean that people could just come up to her and ask her to _marry_ them.

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**My second fanfic! Hope you liked it. Plz review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling please please please please write more books. Why I'm writing that in the disclaimer, I have no idea. But yeah. I don't own any of this. Too bad for me.**

**H****mmm its harder than I thought to write a telephone conversation. It****'****s weird.**

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_Well, my girl's in the next room  
__Sometimes I wish she was you  
__I guess we never really moved on  
__It's really good to hear your voice saying my name  
__It sounds so sweet  
__Coming from the lips of an angel  
__Hearing those words it makes me weak_

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"I…I said that I needed some time to think about it."

Ron breathed out a sigh of relief.

_She__'__s still my Hermione. No one__'__s taken her away._

_Y__et._

"And…what do you think you're going to say?" Ron's tone was hopeful.

"I think I'm going to say yes." She mumbled, her words almost incoherent.

Ron paled, and began to stutter. "Bu…but you can't just do that, I mean, uh…marriage is just such a big thing, you can't…"

"But why not?"

"B…because…augh," his brain now seemed completely incapable of stringing two words together. "Hermione, let's just…let's talk about something else, okay?"

"Fine." Her answer was painfully short.

"So…um…how've you been doing lately?"

"Badly."

"Well, yeah…I've been doing badly too, with Lavender and everything, I mean, she's nice and all…."

A snort issued from the receiver.

"Hey, she is—well I guess not, really. She gets annoying, but I know she's trying to mean well—"

Another snort.

"Fine, yeah, I know. She's just better than nothing, you know?"

"Same here."

"_What?__"_"

"I mean, Viktor's sweet and all, and he's nice, and…well, sweet, but…" She paused for a moment, as though deliberating on whether or not to finish her sentence.

"but…?"

"He's just not you, okay?" she said hurriedly. "I'm sorry, I know we said we were going for a clean break and everything, but it's just that every time I go out to dinner with him or something, I see you smiling at me out of the corner of my eye or something, but when I turn to take a close look, you're suddenly just not there anymore."

"Oh."

Hermione sounded crestfallen at his short and seemingly nonchalant reply. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be pressuring you like this, I guess…I'll just go. It's okay, sorry."

"No, Hermione. I'm telling you, don't even _try_ to hang up on me. If you do, I'm going to go over to wherever you are—well, I suppose you're at Vicky's—and drag you over here, and snog you in front of Lavender. And then you'll be sorry. She'll skin you alive."

"She'll skin you, too," Hermione stated with a small laugh.

"Yeah, I guess so. But hey, look at the bright side, we'll—"

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

"Well, if that's all you have to say, I'll—"

Ron panicked. She was going to hang up on him, and who knew when they would be able to contact each other again? "Merlin, Hermione, I just…I wish you were here, okay?"

"And watch Lavender and you snog your hearts out?" Her voice had an edge to it as she continued. "No thanks."

"We haven't _snogged_."

"Oh, really."

"Well, we haven't. Not _really_."

"Yeah. Sure, I believe you."

"Fine, we've kissed, but…it wasn't a real kiss, really, because—"

"A kiss which isn't a kiss. How intriguing."

"_Hermione_, please, just listen to me," Ron exclaimed, exasperated. "Let me explain, because when I kissed her, it wasn't…it wasn't genuine, you know?"

"No, I don't know."

"When I kissed her, it was like it wasn't _her_, okay? If I just closed my eyes, I could pretend that it wasn't her, and I could pretend it was someone else."

"Namely Fleur." There was a tint of amusement in her voice, which Ron didn't miss.

"NO. Merlin, that girl's married to my _brother_! Of course not Fleur." He said with a laugh. By this point, everything was just becoming idiotic.

"Then who?" said Hermione softly, her breathing slightly faster than its usual.

Ron began to stutter out his answer, apprehensive about what her reaction would be. She said that she'd missed him, but pretending to kiss said person while kissing another was quite a different thing altogether. "Y..You." Silence. "'Mione?"

Her tone dropped. "Don't try to kid me, Ronald."

The phone clicked, and beeping began to issue from it.

_What am I supposed to do now?_

She'd apparently hung up on her, and he trembled slightly. "_Don__'__t try to kid me, Ronald._" Ouch. But at the same time, a small smile began to form on his lips. "_Ronald__"_she'd said.

He'd never noticed until then how much he missed her _voice_; he'd always known how much he'd missed the way she smiled, the way she looked when she was angry at him, and the way she hugged him, but her _voice_?

_Wow._

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**S****hort, ****I**** know.. **

**B****ut plz plz review!!!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Jo Rowling is my GOD.**

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_And I never wanna say goodbye  
__But girl you make it hard to be faithful,  
__With the lips of an angel_

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"Herm-own-ninny," A voice called her from behind, and she flinched. Viktor.

Ron continued to speak, oblivious to the presence of the figure behind her. "Y…You."

She panicked. In circumstances better than these, her choice would be to break down crying and to ask when they could schedule their next date, but with Viktor behind her…it suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea anymore.

_Do I just hang up?_

_No, too confusing for him. He__'__ll try to call back again, and then Viktor might answer._

"'Mione?"

"Don't try to kid me, Ronald." She kept her voice as emotionless as possible, hoping that neither Viktor nor Ron would notice the slight wobble to it. She wanted to keep talking to Ron; there was no explaining it, but just hearing his voice, even over the phone, was soothing, almost letting her forget all that she'd been upset about. Maybe she'd call him back later. Probably.

She placed the receiver back into its holder and turned around to face Viktor.

"Yes, Viktor?" She smiled at him weakly, but his expression didn't change. It remained as unfathomable as ever, looking down at her blankly. "Viktor?"

"Herm-own-ninny, that was the Weasley, was it not?"

"Well, yes."

Viktor pursed his lips, and his gaze was avoided her face her face. He looked first at the clock on the wall (to Hermione's surprise, the Krums also had a clock just like the one the Weasleys did – who was she to know that he had two sisters and a grandmother living with him?) and then to the marble floor. Finally, he spoke up. "What did you talk of?"

"Uh…he was going to get a new err…couch, yes, a couch, for Christmas, so he called me to see which one I thought he should get." She attempted a hopeful grin, but Viktor simply rolled his eyes.

"Herm-own-ninny."

_He __does__n__'__t buy it._

"What I meant was –" she paused and quickly decided to piggy-back on the excuse Ron had made to Lavender. Making a mental note to apologize to Harry later, she began to speak once more. "He…err…told me that Harry, you know, the black-haired guy with glasses –"

Viktor nodded. "The Trivizard boy, yes?"

"Yes, that's him. Well, I…err…didn't want to tell you this before because this would be _terribly_ embarrassing for Harry, you know, but Ron was telling me that Harry planned to ditch Ginny for…Dean, yes."

He looked up. "Vat?"

"Odd, this, isn't it? I didn't believe it at all myself, so I got upset with him, you know, for making a joke about something like that, so I told him not to kid me, and..but now that I think about it, it seems perfectly logical. Harry and Ginny have been having a lot of fights recently –" _I__'__m sorry, Harry, I__'__m sorry. Ginny, too._ "— so now this explains everything." She let out a forced giggle.

She was rambling again, and she knew it.

_Anything to keep Viktor from guessing at the truth. _

This always happened when she got nervous or upset, and both Ron and Harry knew it from all the times that she had fought with Ron. The two of them, Ron and Hermione, were unstoppable once they got riled up, and Harry reckoned that that was what prolonged their fights most of the time. She never would have managed to trick Harry or Ron like this, but with Viktor, perhaps he wouldn't know her well enough to guess. Perhaps.

He furrowed his brow in slight disgust, but an amused look came over his face. "Ah, zat is strange. But not unexpected, I think, because fighting brings out the oddest in people, no?"

Hermione nodded encouragingly, hoping that he would retreat to his bed, leaving her free to call back Ron and explain the abrupt end to their conversation, and then to maybe...no. She mentally scolded herself after thinking this.

_You know, technically you__'__re still Viktor Krum__'__s girlfriend. Just because you__'__re not his __fiancée__ doesn__'__t mean you can go around calling __other __guys. Especially __a guy__ you__'__ve kissed. Especially the __guy__ who keeps drifting into your mind every time you go on a da__te with your supposed boyfriend._

Viktor, completely oblivious to her internal struggle, stood there for a while, contemplating on what he had just said, when suddenly, his face became downcast.

"Viktor?"

"You still do not decide on our marriage?" He looked up at her hopefully, as though thinking that she would have made up her mind within the last, what was it, two or so hours, and had decided that yes, she would marry him, and would jump into his arms squealing. As if.

Shooting him an apologetic grin, she gave him another one of her well-rehearsed comebacks. It would have been a lie to say that she hadn't seen this whole proposal thing coming—quite on the contrary, she'd been expecting him to ask her for a few days now. She'd already known that she wouldn't be able to reply to him straight away, because she couldn't give up the hope, that Ron would…what was the word, "come to his senses?" No, that wouldn't be right. They'd broken it off, and she had agreed, however unwillingly. "Come to his senses" wouldn't be the right expression. But anyway, she'd thought that maybe if she waited long enough, he would come back to her. In the end, though, it was the opposite. She'd ended up calling him, crying about Viktor's proposal.

His proposal hadn't seemed so frightening when she'd thought out the scenario ahead, but when Viktor had come out and _really_ asked her, the realism of the whole thing had really hit her, and she hadn't been able to prevent herself from breaking down into tears.

"Viktor, I'm sorry, but I still need some time to think over it. Marriage is such a huge thing for me."

His face fell, but he quickly recomposed himself. "Okay. I will go to bed now. Goodnight, Herm-own-ninny."

_Your __eloquence__ amazes me, _she thought to herself as he shuffled out of the study. _"_I will go to bed now"—really, what a brilliant choice of words.

Turning back to the desk, she eyed the black antique phone sitting on its surface. Her fingers reached for it, but she pulled back almost instinctively.

_Hermione Granger, technically, that is _cheating_ on your boyfriend._

She heaved a sigh.

_Yeah, it would, wouldn__'__t it._

Pushing her chair out from under her, she stood up, stretched, and followed Viktor's footsteps out of the door and into her own room. She'd refused point blank to share one with Viktor. "Sorry, it's a religious thing," she'd told him. But that hadn't been quite true. Not really.

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**My chapters just keep getting shorter and shorter :(  
oh well, I hope you liked it!**


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